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On the Hill: So Long, Farewell

By Sarah Wheaton December 8, 2006 10:09 amDecember 8, 2006 10:09 am

Try to come back later today. We’re told that, as the Republican-controlled House gets ready to leave, its Ethics Committee may be releasing that long-awaited report on the Foley page scandal. Remember that?

Waddling to the Finish
Senator Bill Frist left the Capitol with his family last night after saying his official goodbye. The majority leader post was supposed to be a precursor to a presidential run, but his troubles during his tenure and the G.O.P.’s loss of the Senate basically ended those hopes.
Two measures that Republican leaders unsuccessfully tried to pass earlier in the lame duck session, an offshore drilling bill and a Vietnam trade bill, are likely to go through the House today attached to a bill, considered a must-pass, that would extend certain tax cuts.

After serving as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and waiting out ‘holds’ from senators of both parties related to the agency’s stance on over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception and drug reimportation, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach was finally confirmed to officially lead the F.D.A. on Thursday.

Congress is looking for ways to avoid cutting the pay of doctors who treat Medicare patients.

Representative Duncan Hunter, who has announced he will run for the Republican nomination, has changed his mind and decided to support the renewal of a federal agency that oversees Iraq spending, making the bill likely to pass.

Looking back, Republican classmates from 1994 talk about how things have changed since they swept into power on the Hill. Representative Gil Gutknecht, who lost his reelection bid this year, reminisced: Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher “said many years ago, ‘First you win the debate, then you win the vote,’ ” he says. “The leadership decided a long time ago they weren’t going to win the debate. They were just going to break knuckles to win the vote.”

The Democrats’ Hill
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the incoming speaker of the House, is planning to ban smoking in the Speaker’s Lobby. Might be a good idea to avoid Representative John Boehner for a few days after that happens.

Lobbyists throwing holiday parties and fundraisers along Pennsylvania Avenue Wednesday night for new Congressional power players don’t expect major changes to the way they operate.

Mayor Ray C. Nagin is optimistic that the next Congress will speed efforts to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

What I thought was a real killer was Frist’ claiming that poor Terri Schiavo was doing just fine, based on some of her movements he saw on TV. A surgeon using his professional skills and the USA reputation of the Medical Field as a whole to try to lenghten the absolute hell Terri and her Husband were living in just for a political advantage was a first one for me. May he …. loose his licence.

I was satisfied with the elections results, although I had wanted Tom Kean and Lincoln Chafee to win. I cannot believe that following the Foley debacle Tom Reynolds and Dennis Hastert kept their seats — that is bizarro!!

I think that maybe the most positive thing to come out of the 2006 elections, besides the Democratic victory, was something that happened this past Friday afternoon, by Representative, Cynthia McKinney. She decided, and I say this regardless of her frustrated potential motives for having done it, to hold Bush and Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice RESPONSIBLE for all the lying they did about all those WMD stockpiles they said they knew the exact location of, in Iraq.

She told it like it was, and still is: Bush and Cheney did exactly as the Iraq Study Group has just now said they did: Lied to Congress by giving Congress what they knew was uncorroborated, and twised “intelligence” that has led directly to the deaths of so many of our innocent young soldiers and the maiming of some 25,000 others. hundreds of thousands suffering from disabling conditions produced by vaccines given to soldiers to prevent anthrax, for example.

She introduced legislation into Congress to Impeach the President and Vice President for their snubbing of the Constitution by snubbing Congress by lying, not only to Congress, but to the citizens of the United States.

Impeachment is not to be used only when the political winds are “correct” or “feasible.”
It is there to be used in an effort to prevent dictatorship and the removal of the rights of American citizens by infringing on those same rights contained in the Constitution.

Whatever her motivations for introducing the Articles of Impeachment, she has a lot of evidence to back up her claims.

President Obama drew criticism on Thursday when he said, “we don’t have a strategy yet,” for military action against ISIS in Syria. Lawmakers will weigh in on Mr. Obama’s comments on the Sunday shows.Read more…